


Your Little Science Experiment

by she_who_the_river_could_not_hold



Series: The Cabin Series [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Between Seasons/Series, Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 21:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/she_who_the_river_could_not_hold/pseuds/she_who_the_river_could_not_hold
Summary: Jim Hopper had never meant for Eleven to find out about that night at the gym, the real reason why Brenner was able to find them so easily. But the truth has a way of coming out. Even when we don't want it to.





	Your Little Science Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> requested by sweet-sugar-sunsets and originally posted on tumblr → "Can you write about Eleven finding out Hopper was the one who turned her in to Brenner at the end of S1?"

He hadn’t meant to say it. He had never meant to have it come to light.

 

Not like this.

 

It was still so early in her being there, he was still getting used to having a small figure shadowing him. Still getting used to having those owlish brown eyes staring inquisitively up at him while he talked, making him often back track and simplify his explanations so that she could understand him better.

 

He’d found Eleven, or El as the boys had dubbed her, only a couple weeks ago. It was still surreal and he hadn’t been able to fight the guilt gnawing in him ever since he saw he first saw her in the woods. Sure he had been leaving Eggos and other things, small items in the hopes of helping her out and attempting to remove some of his guilt, but it wasn’t the same as seeing her in person. Not after everything that had happened.

 

Her timid smiles were rare but he found himself surprised by how much he fought to get them to appear again. Hell he had even danced to an old record just to help show her that she could trust him. Even though he knew she didn’t have any reason to.

 

But now he wasn’t sure he was ever going to get those smiles back. 

 

They’d been eating dinner, some sort of frozen meal he had found for them. They were easy to buy in bulk without arousing suspicion and while he almost felt bad about the lack of quality, he hoped the overall hospitality of the situation won out. She was slowly opening up to him, giving halting stories about what her life had been like since that night in the gym. 

 

Tonight she’s finally gathered the courage to go past living in the woods, what it was like eating a squirrel for dinner, thinking every night she was going to just stop being able to move from the cold. Tonight she had gathered the courage to talk about that actual night, when she felt like she had died and then emerged back to life. 

 

And he had gone and fucked it up.

 

She had been describing the arrival of Dr. Brenner and his goons, how she had pushed and pulled to get away from him and back to Mike. Back to the boy’s arms who had first rescued her and who’s name she said with such reverence it had a holiness to it. _Another thing to feel guilty about._

 

And then he had opened his god damn mouth.

 

“Yeah he’s a real piece of work that asshole,” he had muttered into his Swedish meatballs as he stabbed at his meal with a fork.

 

El’s voice had faltered at that, stopping her story and looking up at him.

 

“How do you know him?” 

 

Her voice was low but clear. He knew he was done for. Her few words weren’t for lack of intelligence and he could see her mind spinning into overdrive behind those big eyes of hers. 

 

He opened his mouth to lie, to do anything. But it was too late. The tears were welling up in her eyes and she furiously brushed at them, a stony expression coming across her face. He could practically see the wall physically being brought back up.

 

“You went to him,” she says woodenly. 

 

“I had to get Will,” he replies. His voice is thick and he desperately regrips the fork in his hand, his palms suddenly sweaty. “I had to ensure the safety of the boys. Of Mike.”

 

The words fall on the table and they’re followed by a heavy silence. The usual creaks and groans from the cabin have picked this time, of all times, to be nonexistent. The active woods around the cabin, usually bustling with the sound of life, have fallen quiet. He’d even beg for the sound of wind right now, just to break apart this awful silence between them.

 

But what happens next is even more heartbreaking. He wanted her to yell at him. To tell him that he was an asshole for deciding which lives were more important than another. That she was a child, just like the ones he had done his best to protect and who was he to offer her up as payment.

 

But instead she stares at him, almost as if he’s a ghost. Her eyes are so expressive and he watches as it looks like she’s haunted by visions of her past. 

 

When she finally speaks again, there’s no emotion.

 

“I understand. I’m expent - expendable,” she says, tripping up over the word before spitting it out. It’s a word she’s heard before, and maybe doesn’t fully realize what it means, but enough that she understands what happened. She’s been taught at one point that she can be replaced when she’s not needed anymore.

 

His heart sinks to what feels like completely out of his body. 

 

They sit there in utter silence and he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose his mind. El’s face is frozen, looking down at her plate. It’s half-filled still. She normally scrapes it clean before he’s even halfway done. Now he’s not only interrupted her story about being stolen away from Mike by the man who once tortured her only to have her sacrifice herself, he’s made her lose her damn appetite. The one basic necessity he’s been trying to help with.

 

She looks back up at him and he desperately adjusts his posture so that he’s sitting up more, hoping for anything that can break this admittance of betrayal.

 

Instead she simply says, “May I be excused?”

 

It’s a phrase he’s been trying to teach her, along side various other manners.

 

Right now it’s a knife to his heart.

 

He can only nod, watching as she scrapes her chair back and pushes herself out of it. His old flannel is drowning her and a part of his mind distractedly reminds him to see if he can figure out a way to get her clothes that will fit her better. 

 

When she disappears into her new room, he sinks his head into his hands and lets out a low groan of despair. He had been a fucking fool to assume that somehow it would never come up. That it would never come to light that he had been the one to lead Brenner to them. He tries to ignore the pangs in his stomach, that feeling that came with the self-loathing he had been battling for a while. 

 

The pangs becoming stabbing pain when he hears it. 

 

A low, keening wail coming from the room. 

 

And then it erupts into a scream. 

 

A chill rushes down his spine and he finds himself unable to move. He can hear the furniture shifting in the room and books falling to the floor. Her outcry trails out into a choked sob, and then nothing. 

 

When Jim Hopper had decided to bring El back to the cabin, it had been both a last minute decision and a moment of repentance. It had been because he knew it was the right thing to do. He hadn’t factored in the layers to their situation, what it would be like moving forward. And now it had been thrown in his face. But suddenly it wasn’t just about keeping her out of the cold and giving her full meals. This was going to be about keeping her safe. 

 

About giving her the life that he had nearly robbed her of. 


End file.
